Agir tôt pour la réussite éducative de tous - Près de 130 M $ pour mieux préparer les enfants à l'école
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Government announcement
4 June 2018

Nearly $130 million to better prepare children for school

Agir tôt pour la réussite éducative de tous - Près de 130 M $ pour mieux préparer les enfants à l'école

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Early intervention for everyone’s educational success

QUÉBEC CITY, June 4, 2018 – In order to promote the development of everyone’s full potential from an early age, Sébastien Proulx, Minister of Education, Recreation and Sports and Minister responsible for the Capitale-Nationale region, unveiled a series of important measures to support the educational success of children in preschool and elementary school.

So that they can discover the joy of learning and receive an early introduction to reading and writing, new educational material adapted to kindergarten students and children’s books for kindergarten to second grade will be added to schools in Québec this September.

Moreover, so that all children can have the same chances of success, 111 new full-time kindergarten classes for four-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds will open their doors this September. Transition agents will be hired for each school board and a new program to align the programs for four-year-olds and five-year-olds will be tested in 40 classes starting in September.

All of the measures announced today represent investments totalling nearly $130 million over five years, including a little more than $26 million for the next school year.

Quote:

The measures announced today for kindergarten to Grade 2 demonstrate how important early education is to us. We must provide our children with opportunities to learn to read, write and count. These are important foundations on which they will build their future learning. We must do all we can to awaken each child’s appetite to learn, and the measures announced today show our desire to make that happen.

– Sébastien Proulx, Minister of Education, Recreation and Sports and Minister responsible for the Capitale-Nationale region

Key points:

  • The It’s All About the Children strategy, launched in January 2018, proposes an ambitious plan for adding resources for kindergarten and Grade 2, as well as important financial resources by 2022.
  • The measures announced today will allow us to implement this strategy. Among other things:
    • Adding 111 full-time kindergarten classes for four-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds brings the number of open classes across Québec whose deployment is complementary with educational childcare services to 400 ($14 million).
    • Of these 111 classes, 4 will be located in multilingual and multi-ethnic areas ($500,000 pilot project).
    • A sum of $3 million will allow the acquisition of educational material intended for these children, while an amount of $600,000 will be used to purchase children’s books for preschool and the first cycle of elementary school.
    • Transition agents will be hired in each school board to ensure the transition, mobilization, cooperation and support of staff ($8 million).
    • A working group on preschool education, chaired by Monique Brodeur, Dean of the Faculty of Education at UQAM, will be established as of June 26. This group will be tasked with examining ways to strengthen the initial and continued education of preschool teaching staff.
    • Support, assistance and training for preschool education staff will be offered by the Ministry.
  • For the Capitale-Nationale region, kindergarten classes for four-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds are divided among the school boards as follows:
    • Commission scolaire des Découvreurs: 1
    • Commission scolaire de la Capitale: 1
    • Commission scolaire de Charlevoix: 1
    • Commission scolaire de Portneuf: 1